Conventionally, as one method of cataract surgery, there has been commonly implemented a method of treating by removing a clouded natural crystalline lens from the eye and then inserting an artificial intraocular lens into the eye. For the insertion of the intraocular lens into the eye, an insertion instrument called an injector is employed. This injector includes an instrument body having a placing portion on which the intraocular lens is to be placed and an inserting portion for guiding the intraocular lens into the eye, and a push-out member configured to come into contact with the intraocular lens with a distal end thereof for pushing out the lens (e.g. Patent Document 1).
The intraocular lens is pushed by the push-out member and then released into the eye while being progressively folded within the inserting portion. Therefore, the incision can be kept small for alleviating surgical load on the patient.
Patent Document 1 discloses an intraocular lens having a circular optical portion and a haptic extending in a curved shape from the optical portion. This intraocular lens is held by the instrument body. In this, a holding member is inserted from under the placing portion of the intraocular lens so as to place the intraocular lens upwardly of a push-out shaft and the distal end portion of the push-out member is placed under the intraocular lens. Under this condition, the product is shipped from a factory. Next, at the time of use of the injector, a user will pull out the holding member, whereby the haptic of the intraocular lens is placed on top of the distal end portion of the push-out member. With this arrangement, when the push-out member is pushed in, the distal end portion of this push-out member will not press the haptic, thus preventing deformation and damage of this haptic.
Further, the push-out member has a length which is set to allow the distal end of this push-out member to protrude sufficiently from the distal end of the insertion portion at the time of latter half stage in the inserting operation. With this arrangement, the intraocular lens can be released in a reliable manner from the distal end of the insertion portion to be eventually inserted into the eye.